Last week, I offered a friend some help in building a jungle gym. Not your normal jungle gym from Costco or Home Depot, but rather a custom built one. The wife of my friend said, "Yeah right, when are you going to find the time to do that?
I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to explain to this person why I have time to not only build a jungle gym, but build a jungle gym for someone else. On top of all that, what on earth does this have to do with Taekwondo? Ahhhhh... but, it has everything to do with it.
Take for instance a middle punch. You don't have to understand martial arts to understand what I'm going to describe. With your middle punch, one fist thrusts outward toward the target, and at the exact same time, the opposite fist comes back in toward the body. It's a push/pull sort of motion.
You'd be surprised, the mechanics of this super simple motion become very complex, very fast. In fact, it becomes so complex that in college I actually studied the middle punch with a 2D motion simulation program. Without boring you with all the details of my findings, let me tell you what factors contributed to a stronger punch and which contributed to a weaker punch.
Force from a punch is generated by the acceleration from several muscles working in sequence with each other. At the exact same time, it is possible to have your muscles working against you while you're punching. Even the most experienced martial artists are still developing the mechanics of their punch. If I could sum up the solution to a powerful punch in 3 words, it would be Yin & Yang.
Yin & Yang is about balance and harmony. When your body is physically in balance, executing a middle punch, you become very powerful. The same goes for other techniques, like the roundhouse kick.
Yin is considered the passive side and Yang is the aggressive side. As you raise your leg for a roundhouse kick, your contracting muscles accelerating your foot from the floor toward your target is considered Yang. Now, in order for your leg to travel smoothly, without resistance, you must have elastic muscles that are not pulling your leg back to the floor. In other words, flexibility- Yin. Students will often be attracted to the power of a technique, disregarding the Yin aspect. The same goes for when a student longs to kick way over their head, and focuses on stretching, but neglects building the strength to bring the leg that high.
The ancient philosophy of Yin & Yang is all about balance. Balance is something that not only takes place in the Taekwondo classroom, but also in life. In our school, we have a piece of exercise equipment called a wobble board. It's a round disc with a half dome on the bottom, located in the middle. This round board requires you to stand on it while maintaining balance. The neat thing about this board is that you're constantly applying Yin & Yang to remain as static as possible.
Don't worry, I'm making my way back to the jungle gym...
Imagine standing on that wobble board, immediately you're rocking in an infinite amount of directions trying to maintain a static position. Now, imagine on one side of the board it says FAMILY, the opposite side says CAREER. Also, imagine that another side says FRIENDS and the opposite side says HEALTH. Let's keep going... HOBBIES and opposite is PERSONAL GROWTH. Should we do one more? How about MONEY and opposite is SPIRITUAL.
Now that you're on your imaginary wobble board, you'll find yourself constantly wobbling. In fact, it's impossible to remain 100% static on a solid surface. We're constantly applying too much Yang to one side, then having to come back with some Yin to balance it out.
How do I, personally, balance on the Yin & Yang wobble board of life? Well, it's simple, and it's not because I train everyday. I make sure that everything I do in a day fits into one of those categories listed above. I make sure that I don't get involved with activities that don't contribute to any of my categories, like watching TV. If you've read some of my earlier posts, you know Rachel and I are proud of our rabbit ears. Every now and then I do tune into Leno or Conan while I change gears before I begin reading.
I happen to love construction. I love building and I love the tools to do it. I enjoy friends and I enjoy making new friends. Let's take a look at the wobble board. The two things I mentioned above are HOBBIES and FRIENDS. When I have the opportunity to do both, it's a no brainer. This past weekend was a double no brainer. My whole family spent the afternoon at this FRIENDS house. The kids played together, we hung out as FAMILES, and I fullfilled a HOBBY.
Here's the lesson-
1. Determine your categories that are important to you or use mine.
2. Choose your daily activities that fit in those categories.
3. Avoid doing activities that prevent you from getting closer to your category goals or have nothing to do with it.
4. Then apply the ancient Chinese philosophy of Yin & Yang and constantly work at keeping your balance with all of them.
Respectfully,
Duncan Richardson
Chief Master Instructor
The Academy of World Taekwondo
Ph: 208.381.0587
Web: http://www.FreeKarateLesson.com
Monday, May 5, 2008
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